Pelipper – Scarlet & Violet
Date Reviewed: May 30, 2023
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.0
Expanded: 1.5
Limited: 5.0
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Vince
One pre-release promo down, three more to go. And this time is Pelipper (SV Paldea Evolved 159/193)! A Stage 1 Colorless type with 120 HP, Lightning Weakness, Fighting Resistance, and a retreat cost of CC, it has an ability and an attack. Its Hearsay ability states that when you play this Pokemon from your hand to evolve one of your Pokemon, you may choose 1 of the effects: put a Supporter card from your discard pile onto your hand or search your deck for a Supporter card from your deck and put it onto your hand. And Wing Attack costs CCC for 90 damage.
Looking at it, the only thing that matters for Pelipper is the ability. Depending on how you think, it’s good that you can fetch it from your deck or your discard pile, making other situational Supporters be used a bit more freely. You can think Pelipper as an ability-based VS Seeker, or a Lumineon-V but as a Stage 1 non-Rule Box Pokemon. The only place where Pelipper won’t help you search something is from the prizes, but I don’t think there are other Pokemon that can do that, otherwise it would make the card text extremely bloated. Something along the lines of “Search your prizes for a Supporter card and put it onto your hand. If you do that, put a card from your hand or your deck into the prize zone. If you put a card from your deck, shuffle your deck afterward.”, yeah that’d be bloated for sure.
My only gripe is that there are similar different evolutionary lines that does this. No, not exactly what Pelipper does, but something like only being worthwhile for just the ability that can be activated only once and then just be a sitting duck. For example, 1-0-1 Abroliva also comes to mind, as Abroliva uses its ability that acts like a Max Potion and afterwards just sits there. Its attack isn’t worth using, their lower stages don’t contribute much, it takes bench space, and is a target via Boss’s Orders to be OHKOed. Same with Wingull even though there’s currently only one Standard legal options Wingull. And you can’t even use Lugia VSTAR’s ability to get Pelipper into play because that won’t let you use that ability. But, even after all that, I still think Pelipper might eventually see more play later on if Lumineon-V leaves the format and there isn’t any other alternative replacement that can fetch for abilities.
Ratings:
Standard: 3/5
Expanded: 1.5/5
Limited: 5/5
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